My housekeeping has never been the greatest. In my family we say we are housekeeping challenged! When I was a new Christian I heard someone who suggested that if we thought about what Jesus would think if he walked into our home, it would motivate us to keep our house cleaner. That worked for about fifteen years! Then I finally learned that Jesus isn't looking at my house--He is looking at my heart.
Needless to say, we are busy with life, and the house has gradually accumulated excess stuff. It had come to the point that it was impossible to clean around the junk. I was frustrated with the whole situation and fussed about it. The children would clean their room, only to be junky within a week. We were walking around stuff in the halls. I prayed and asked God to have mercy and send a housecleaning miracle! I knew it was bigger than anything I could do in less than a year of intensive housecleaning.
Recently my daughter with the recessive clean genes decided to clean our bathroom in a major way. (I let her use my bathroom in return for cleaning it--it gets crowded in the girls' bathroom.) This time she scrubbed it from top to bottom, every nook and cranny. She even took down the curtains and dejunked the cabinets. With such a clean environment, I realized that it was time for a new paint job. Then we decided that we needed to get some cheap plastic containers to organize our make up and hair stuff and to get it off the counter. My bathroom now looks fabulous and is very easy to clean.
Inspired by one success, I started dejunking the kitchen--one cabinet at a time. It was very doable and fun because I wasn't doing the whole entire house. Everything about the house was getting better. At this point other family members took notice. Before I knew it, the girls were dejunking their own rooms and helping the boys (the three youngest) do theirs. The boys filled a giant trashbag with outgrown clothes that kept rotating around their room during various cleanups. Now we knew why they couldn't keep their room clean for more that a day or two.
Pondering the amazing "turnaround" in our home, God reminded me about the revival verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." KJV
As much as I hate to admit it, when I got rid of my bad attitude about the condition of my home and started to do something about my own part of it, a housekeeping revival started in my home! No amount of striving, cajoling, begging, or threatening produced any housekeeping miracles. It was humbling myself to admit that my housekeeping skills were wretched; seeking God for help (instead of man/children); and repenting of my own wickedness by cleaning up my areas of the house that caused God to hear from heaven, forgive my sin, and heal my "land".
Needless to say, we are busy with life, and the house has gradually accumulated excess stuff. It had come to the point that it was impossible to clean around the junk. I was frustrated with the whole situation and fussed about it. The children would clean their room, only to be junky within a week. We were walking around stuff in the halls. I prayed and asked God to have mercy and send a housecleaning miracle! I knew it was bigger than anything I could do in less than a year of intensive housecleaning.
Recently my daughter with the recessive clean genes decided to clean our bathroom in a major way. (I let her use my bathroom in return for cleaning it--it gets crowded in the girls' bathroom.) This time she scrubbed it from top to bottom, every nook and cranny. She even took down the curtains and dejunked the cabinets. With such a clean environment, I realized that it was time for a new paint job. Then we decided that we needed to get some cheap plastic containers to organize our make up and hair stuff and to get it off the counter. My bathroom now looks fabulous and is very easy to clean.
Inspired by one success, I started dejunking the kitchen--one cabinet at a time. It was very doable and fun because I wasn't doing the whole entire house. Everything about the house was getting better. At this point other family members took notice. Before I knew it, the girls were dejunking their own rooms and helping the boys (the three youngest) do theirs. The boys filled a giant trashbag with outgrown clothes that kept rotating around their room during various cleanups. Now we knew why they couldn't keep their room clean for more that a day or two.
Pondering the amazing "turnaround" in our home, God reminded me about the revival verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." KJV
As much as I hate to admit it, when I got rid of my bad attitude about the condition of my home and started to do something about my own part of it, a housekeeping revival started in my home! No amount of striving, cajoling, begging, or threatening produced any housekeeping miracles. It was humbling myself to admit that my housekeeping skills were wretched; seeking God for help (instead of man/children); and repenting of my own wickedness by cleaning up my areas of the house that caused God to hear from heaven, forgive my sin, and heal my "land".
It is so simple, but we keep making it so hard! I love this verse about striving:
Isaiah 30:15
"For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
Many times God told Israel to return to Him and rest in Him and to be quiet and confident in Him. Time and again, they did not. Take a moment to return to God and rest in Him. Be quiet and confident in Him--that He will take care of your situation. Put your trust in Him!
Blessings,
Harriet
